Legalities

David Frum's Diary had this today concerning the Gonzales flap:

"... and this takes us to the most crucial point:

3) That many Democrats and left-wing legal activists *recognize* that another vacancy may soon be opening on the Supreme Court - and that Gonzales would be a very difficult nominee for them to reject?

Ask yourself this: If Gonzales is knocked out of the game now - and a vacancy does open - who else could the president nominate who would be a) even half-way good and b) able to achieve confirmation? And ask yourself this: Do you suppose the Dems have not performed the same calculation?"

That's Frum's take. My take on that is that what Frum meant was the democrats *feared* that another vacancy may soon be opening on the Supreme Court, not that they have any inside information that it's going to happen. That's pretty standard activity: the liberals fear another vacancy and the conservatives hope for one.

I doubt Frum knows anything new along this line, but still it's always fun to speculate, and like Jan basically says, no one knows for sure there won't be another vacancy soon either.

If there is one, I can't see Gonzales getting it, not even before this dust up. He's been too controversial for some time, both to conservatives (social liberal tendencies) and to liberals (cival liberty abuses).

Jan has made a believer out of me that the next nominee will be a woman and that the three most likely women are Brown, Owen and Sykes. Of these three, I expect it will be Brown, because she will generate the largest wave of public support, especially among social conservatives throughout the South, Midwest, and West.

Most of the other names that people continue to throw around (McConnell, Luttig, Pryor, Williams, Callahan) simply aren't viable. People who think these other names still are viable simply haven't read her book -- or haven't paid enough attention to what they were reading.

In another related post over on The Corner, on National Review on line, Ramesh Ponnuru had this:

"A pretty smart Republican staffer in the Senate analyzed the politics of a confirmation fight this way. Assuming a vacancy, and the nomination of a capable conservative, the Democrats would hang together on a filibuster and the nomination would die. But if Republicans held tough and sent up another capable conservative, the Democrats wouldn't be able to get away with it a second time. Seemed plausible."

Well, it does make sense that the Democrats couldn't credibly filibuster two straight nominees. Their liberal base (Norman Lear and People for the American Way etc) may demand one filibuster just for the satisfaction they'd get from doing it, and then they might have to let the next nominee through because public opinion would otherwise swing too strongly against the liberals.

But if the first nominee is going to be shot down, then I don't want that one to be Brown.
Hmm, this whole thing could get tricky.

in the aftermath of 9/11 i was talking to a future prosecutor whose greatest moment of empathy was that i knew 'of' an alumni who died in the fire. i dont see how any sane person can decipher rules of evidence with the internet, who has time for craigslist?

Ms. Crawford, the real issue here has nothing to do with judges, all politicians are corrupt, as are the judges that they appoint. It doesn't matter who becomes president, so far none of the candidates of any political persuasion has indicated that the US will take any path other than the status quo, corruption at sustained levels that no nation can possibly survive. Make abortion illegal? Repeal ROE v.WADE? Repeal the civil rights act? Re-institute slavery? Voting rights only for landowners? All the fondest dreams of the neocon nazis could be enacted by a "conservative" court, the only result will be a faster slide into anarchy. If I want to smoke a joint, who gave anyone the right to decide that I cannot? The "social conservative" drivel spouted by both sides decrying my choice to do so is no more than obfuscation designed to divert attention from the real issue; corruption. Some of the same people who legislated its' illegality profit from the higher prices of a plant that is as a result more expensive than gold, and also perishable. Corruption is the cancer that is entering terminal stage, the patient is dying, and those who ran to become the caregivers only concern themselves with how to sell the harvested organs. Wake up, there is no place for "social conservatism", legislation of morality based on interpretations of morality by the ignorant and the corrupt is the certain death warrant for the US. Newt G. was Clinton's loudest critic on the issue of infidelity, and now we know he was also the loudest hypocrite. Your media access can be much better used to help in the waging of total and unrelenting war against corruption, then your descendants might not have to die in wars based upon lies and greed.

Re: A Remedy for Bank Robberies?
I have long thought a bullet-proof glass vestibule could be manufactured and installed in modular form at banks where robberies are all too frequent. Since most banks have glass doors the appearance would not be greatly different. Manually controlled door locks would enable any teller to “arm” the locking system. When the robbers attempted to exit the bank, the inner door would permit entry; the outer door would remain locked. The only opponent to this would be the ACLU who would probably claim that robbers would be incarcerated without being Mirandized. Alfred

Potiphar's wife wants Joseph thrown in prison for 30 years
U.S. Attorneys prosecuting AL. Democrats that may hold high offices

"A U.S ATTORNEY WHO IS MARRIED TO AL. GOV. RILEY'S CANPAIGN MANAGER SAYS THAT RILEY'S RIVAL (Don Siegelman) FOR THE 2002 & 2006 ELECTIONS SHOULD GO TO PRISON FOR 30 YEARS BECAUSE HE APPOINTED SOMEONE WHOSE CORPORATION OF WHICH HE WAS CEO MADE DONATIONS TO HIS CAMPAIGN FUND."

Keep in mind that this happened back in 1999 when the person being appointed was the founder of a fortune 500 company. He was considered a pillar of the community. His company gave literally hundreds of donations to political campaigns, churches, colleges, cities, scholarships, etc. in Alabama.

Streets, college buidings, foundations, etc. in AL. are still named after this man. In 1999 he was considered with high respect by politicians, companies, cities, etc.

I mention all the above just to say why wouldn't Gov. Siegelmal want to reappoint this man of the year, and why shouldn't he accept campaign donations from his corporation. Keep remembering that is 1999 when this happened.

We all know that politicians depend on contributions to run a campaign. If the law is interpreted that politicians have to bear all expenses out of their own pockets, who would run for office? These men have done no more than other politicians. Scrushy had served on the Alabama Hospital Review Board under 3 other governors. Why was it considered illegal for Siegelman to reappoint him?

I believe that W.C. and K.R. knew that Siegelman could cause Riley to be defeated in the governor's election of 2006, so his court dates were set so it would occur just before and during the election so that he would be detained. It was obvious that it was a political pay, but no one realized that the Rep. Party wanted to use him to set an example as part of a scare tactic to deter Democrats from running for high offices in AL.

The way that Gov. Siegelman is being treaded makes us Alabamians sick to our stomach. His treatment remind me of events that we occasionally hear on the news where in one case a young lady was gang raped and beaten in broad daylight with people walking by, looking out of windows and driving by. No one called 911 or offering to help her in any way.

“””””We have been waiting for someone from Washington to stop this inhume treatment of our governor and his family and conduct a formal investigation.””””

If my memory doesn’t fail me his wife’s car was hit by a drunk driver around 15 to 20 years ago. I believe that it knocked a hole in the side of her skull and it might have knocked an eye out. She is a Jewish lady. She doesn't talk much and she has been well composed in public (considering all that has happened), but I feel that no one can completely recover from that type of accident. I can only imagine how her and her children are suffering with the way they are treating Don. The day that he was sentence he couldn’t even say goodbye to his family. They said that he was shackled immediately. I hope they didn’t shackle him until after his family left the court.

Yesterday the AP news announced that the prison has been order to force hard time on the two of them. They have been moved to the smallest cell in the prison, they are allowed out of the cell only one hour per day to make collect phone calls (the last I heard calls from prison phones cost between $3 to $4 per minute that his wife has to pay) and to stretch.

I am a Viet Nam veteran. I was taught by the Army to leave no fallen soldier behind. Ex-combat troops are like trained dogs that have been trained to attack, fetch and obey. We veterans feel that we have a fellow comrade in a POW camp in Atlanta, Ga. We know that Gov. Siegelman is a good, honest hard working family man.

Background:
Alabama has always been ranked in the bottom four states of having the lowest number of high school graduates at 59% and out of these H.S. graduates only 24% get the opportunity to start college.

Before Siegelman ran for governor he made several trips to Georgia doing studies on their HOPE scholarship lottery. He studied the crime rate. He talked with church leaders to get their input on how the lottery effected their communities. One lady told him that she had four children that had all gotten free lottery scholarships. They said that before the lottery that "poor" H.S. graduates had a slim chance.

When he served as governor in 1998-2001 part of his platform was to implement a HOPE lottery in AL. He went out on a limb and co-signed a note for $500,000 to get the campaign started; however, It was voted down due to Lobbyist Jack Abramoff setting up fake Christian and family group accounts in Alabama. They started running prime time ads and circulating letters with Riley's endorsement condoning the lottery in the name of Christianity (J.A. is Jewish). For stopping the lottery J.A. was paid $4,000,000 by the Choctaw Indians. He made the Indians believe that the Alabama lottery would hurt their casino businesses in Mississippi.

John McCain heads up the congressional committee of Indian Affairs who investigated Abramoff. He was prosecuted; however, the U.S. Attorneys didn't try to prosecute anyone in Alabama associated with this scam. The McCain report is on the internet.

Because of what J.A. did the lottery was voted down. Don's campaign owed the initial $500,000 that was borrowed. HealthSouth made donations to clear the account. U.S. Attorney Leura Canary saw this as bribery since Scrushy was CEO of HealthSouth and was serving on the State's CON Review Board reappointed by Siegelman when he went into office. It didn't matter to them that Scrushy had served on the board under three prior Governors or that Don never personally received a penny.